Mud Administration, Can You Handle It?

In the September 2000 issue of Imaginary Realties, there were a
number of articles covering various aspects of mud administration
and "power"ship. However informative all of those articles were,
they covered mostly those who are currently IN power. Here I
present a piece covering those who WANT to become powerful or run
their mud. This article originally appeared in Abermud
Announcements #12 and is reprinted here by request.

There are many people around whom run to wizard, then decide
that they want to become archwizards, demigods, or other types of
powers on various muds. Well, maybe its time to examine the
question, so you want to become a power but can you handle it? I
will explain what exactly it means to be a power, and the
potential minefields you will be trodding through once you
acquire this responsibility. I can tell you from personal
experience that it is not easy, it is hard work, it can be an
emotional drain, it can be very punishing to your mental state,
and it is time consuming. I do not wish to scare people away from
the job, but it may be a good thing to inform anyone what one may
experience before they take the plunge, find out it wasn't what
they thought it was, then quit after a short time.

A different kind of power

The first thing that must be knownis that running a mud costs
money. Years ago when muds were not in the quantity they are now,
many of them managed to find a server that would host their game
for free. Today, that is rarely the case. Most people have to pay a
monthly rate to rent a couple hundred megs of hard drive space and
bandwidth, which runs between $25-$50 depending on the size and
number of players on your mud. If you aren't in the group putting
up financial support to keep a mud going you can pass over this
detail.

The second thing that must be known is that keeping a mud
going requires some coding talent, which consumes a lot of time.
Resolving things found by people running on the mud that aren't
working as they are supposed to is difficult. Trying to find how
a mud crashes once in a blue moon on a section of code that works
99.9% of the time can whack your brain. If you're not a part of
this group you can pass over this detail.

Now here is what part that encompasses everyone wanting to be
a power. Every power will have the responsibility of enforcing
the rules of the game. That can be a troublesome chore, because
there are many people who do not like authority. Many people
think because it's only a game that they can cheat. And there's
many people that look at the same person before they were a power
much differently after they have been hired as a power, usually
in a negative light. I've seen friendly relations between people
go sour after one of them gets hired as a power, which seems to
be traceable to jealously, envy, or fear. And there are the
troublemakers, people who don't come to your mud to play the
game, but play with your heads. Stupid little morons log in,
shout their desires for having oral sex cause they can't get any
in real life, shout their racism, bigotry, and hatred of women
because they would get beaten to a bloody pulp if they'd dare do
it in a packed shopping mall, or shout every four-letter word
that exists for the heck of doing so because they'd get their
mouths bleached or thrown in jail if they lived in Wisconsin
which happens to still have an anti-obscenity law. If you're
lucky, one zap or exo will be enough to get rid of them. But
sometimes these losers won't quit. They will keep logging in
under a bunch of different names and continue their harassing of
everyone on the mud until their site is banned. But then they may
not have had enough so they hop to another site and telnet in
from there (if they have one) and continue the harassment all
over again. It's enough to drive you mad, if you aren't mentally
prepared for it. Then there are many that come to the mud to
escape their real world problems for a little while, but can't
keep totally away from them. Because it is easier for them to
express their problems online than in person and they have some
level of anonymity, you will hear things from them that are
shocking and outrageous from all over the world. And usually, you
will become the 'shoulder to cry on', which is a tough thing to
do because you are counseling someone on how to handle or resolve
their difficulties without knowing all what is going on over
there. I should know, I've taken this role a number of times,
it's not fun, it's usually heartbreaking, and it's emotionally
draining. Many times you don't know the answer and struggle to
come up with some idea of what to do based on past experiences or
knowledge.

Well, I hope I haven't scared everyone away from the job but
weeded out those who would have been in over their heads and
resigning shortly thereafter. It requires a lot of maturity, it
is for the thick-skinned and not the weak of heart. It can be a
thankless job at times, but without them, there can't be a mud.
There aren't too many muds out there that run themselves.